Glen Hirshberg's Blog - Posts Tagged "flatlanders"
Howe Gelb-- "Vortexas"
T.R.U.E., Week of 7/29, Post #2:
Howe Gelb-- "Vortexas"
I've always filed Howe Gelb and Giant Sand way back in that deep, deep drawer full of artists I know I'm supposed to like, whom I've been assured I like, who share so many attributes with artists I DO like. If only there was one single memorable melody, one dazzling turn of phrase, preferably both, preferably together...
Listen here -->
I snapped up a promo copy of Howe's 2013 album, THE COINCIDENTALIST, in the 99-cent bins at Freakbeat (still among my favorite bins in Los Angeles). I only grabbed it, honestly, because it was 99 cents. But this opening track surprised me. Made me pull that drawer open wider. There's that Leonard Cohen old-guy groove, first of all, beautifully dusty and creaking, which gets funkier to me with each passing year. And those world-weary, Southwest-metanowhere lyrics: "It used to be much cheaper/to find a love and to keep her/to play guitar and reiterate/or embrace the heat and just hibernate." As wistful and wide-open, almost, as the Flatlanders' mythic, marvelous "Dallas," their farmers dogs that "only bark" and their cold north winds that bite. It really is like the Flatlanders, like Cohen, I thought--think--except, yeah, with no other people in it. Which isn't like Cohen, or the Flatlanders, either, but is like Tuscon, metaphorical Tuscon, "our universe center/used to live there like a renter." Hell, Vortexas could be a genre-name. Beats the hell out of Western Beat, or whatever Jimmie Dale Gilmore is calling it these days (though Gelb's Tuscon still isn't anywhere near as nowhere, or as alluring, as Gilmore's Dallas, his midnight trains).
Good stuff. The real, unreal stuff.
As for the rest of THE COINCIDENTALIST...it's almost as good. I think. That is, I remember it being good. That is, I'm pretty sure I played it all the way through, several times. I didn't MEAN to leave it in that drawer, it's just the drawer was open, and I was cleaning up. and I got distracted, and...
Howe Gelb-- "Vortexas"
I've always filed Howe Gelb and Giant Sand way back in that deep, deep drawer full of artists I know I'm supposed to like, whom I've been assured I like, who share so many attributes with artists I DO like. If only there was one single memorable melody, one dazzling turn of phrase, preferably both, preferably together...
Listen here -->
I snapped up a promo copy of Howe's 2013 album, THE COINCIDENTALIST, in the 99-cent bins at Freakbeat (still among my favorite bins in Los Angeles). I only grabbed it, honestly, because it was 99 cents. But this opening track surprised me. Made me pull that drawer open wider. There's that Leonard Cohen old-guy groove, first of all, beautifully dusty and creaking, which gets funkier to me with each passing year. And those world-weary, Southwest-metanowhere lyrics: "It used to be much cheaper/to find a love and to keep her/to play guitar and reiterate/or embrace the heat and just hibernate." As wistful and wide-open, almost, as the Flatlanders' mythic, marvelous "Dallas," their farmers dogs that "only bark" and their cold north winds that bite. It really is like the Flatlanders, like Cohen, I thought--think--except, yeah, with no other people in it. Which isn't like Cohen, or the Flatlanders, either, but is like Tuscon, metaphorical Tuscon, "our universe center/used to live there like a renter." Hell, Vortexas could be a genre-name. Beats the hell out of Western Beat, or whatever Jimmie Dale Gilmore is calling it these days (though Gelb's Tuscon still isn't anywhere near as nowhere, or as alluring, as Gilmore's Dallas, his midnight trains).
Good stuff. The real, unreal stuff.
As for the rest of THE COINCIDENTALIST...it's almost as good. I think. That is, I remember it being good. That is, I'm pretty sure I played it all the way through, several times. I didn't MEAN to leave it in that drawer, it's just the drawer was open, and I was cleaning up. and I got distracted, and...
